


Cards Speak

by Ciuro



Category: Twin Peaks
Genre: Card Games, M/M, Mentions of other characters - Freeform, Tarot, attempt at symbolism, implied - Freeform, playing cards
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-13
Updated: 2017-05-13
Packaged: 2018-10-31 04:21:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10891599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ciuro/pseuds/Ciuro
Summary: An exercise in intuition, with mixed results.





	Cards Speak

 

“Sheriff, could you shuffle these for me?” Cooper held out a deck of cards. ”I can do the pouring, if you don’t mind.”

”Sure.” Harry handed over the pot of fresh coffee, and began to mix the cards with practiced movements. Lord knew the Twin Peaks police force had had their fair share of downtime in the days before murder and mayhem. Or on the contrary, times like this when jurisdiction put a spoke in the wheel and they spent the last opening hour playing solitaire until they could go out and handle the trouble Bookhouse-fashion. 

That was not to say he found his job unrewarding or cumbersome; he was here to serve the people of Twin Peaks. But sometimes it was better done outside work hours.

He glanced at the set timer on his desk; well over forty minutes left. After Hawk nearly walked in on them, they’d found it best to save their maps and plans for the privacy of Cooper’s car. In the meantime, the man's company almost made Harry forget their impending raid against One Eyed Jack’s. Even with a deck of cards moving in his hands.

"Mind me asking what these are for?”

“Not at all.” An enthusiastic grin. “I will try to predict which card comes up. It’s an exercise intended to train my intuition - tools of the trade need to stay sharp. But I’ve found it beneficial to let another pair of hands handle the deck every once in a while. It’s possible my own shuffling has grown somewhat negligent over time.” Cooper set the pot down and pushed one of the cups over to Harry. “In fact, ‘predict’ is a somewhat misleading word suggesting knowledge of events yet to take shape. The card faces already exist, but hidden from my sight.”

Harry returned the deck face-down. Cooper took it and began to draw cards at uneven pauses.

”Hearts. Number below four.”

The sheriff sipped his coffee and watched Cooper's brow knit as he ran a thumb over the top card. A rasp of plastic paper when he flipped it.

“Which one?”

“Deuce of Hearts.” The agent held it up for inspection, before he put it down.

“Geez…”

”Well, admittedly I gave myself some leeway with this one. Sometimes intuition is like the beam of a flashlight - it illuminates only a stretch of the path, and you must move forward to see more. But I have a strong feeling that next one,” Cooper patted the deck, “will be the King of Diamonds.” He turned the top card over to reveal the one-eyed royal.

The pile of right guesses grew. Halfway through, it was more than thrice as big as the heap of errors. “But,” Dale noted, “it might even out somewhat with these last few cards. Nothing’s for certain, although the probability of accuracy increases if you remember which ones you’ve sorted out.”

As the deck shrank, the pauses between each statement grew longer. Eventually, one last card remained. Cooper tapped it with a finger, rubbed the glazed surface as if to clear a persistent smudge. At length he said:

“Harry, could you keep this in mind in case I attempt to postdict it: Ten of Spades.”

“Ten of Spades,” Harry murmured.

Cooper turned the card over.

“I’ll be damned.” Harry gazed down at the symmetrical pattern of black pips. Ten of Spades all right.

Cooper tallied his results and squared the cards. ”Would you like to try, sheriff?”

That enthusiasm was infective. Harry gave a good-natured shrug, “Suppose I could.”

Dale shuffled well and long. Sometimes he cut the deck and picked a card from the bottom to slide it into the middle, like a magician sticking swords into a Zig Zag Box. But Coop's brand of extraordinary was no TV-hocus pocus, Harry knew that much.

“Here you go.”

“Okay.” Harry grasped the deck, a card already crossing his mind. ”Ace of Hearts.”

He peered down; Seven of Spades. Bummer, not even in the ballpark. On the other hand, what were the chances he’d hit the jackpot on his first try? Less than two percent, he reckoned.

He slid the card aside and drew another. Better cast a wider net with this one.

“Diamonds, up to ten.”

A leering Joker stuck its tongue out at him.

“Tough luck,” Cooper sympathized. ”But don’t give up.”

”Not planning on it.” Harry closed his eyes and passed his thumb over the deck like Coop had done, trying to catch what flew through his mind. An image, shady red-black with curving lines. High rank. Ace of Diamonds? Ten of Hearts? No, his last guess on one was wrong. He tilted his head, as if that would somehow clear it.

Black, court card. A Queen? His brow knitted. King or Jack? Spades or Clubs?

“King of Clubs.”

A flicker of surprise stirred in him when he turned up the card. Jack of Clubs.

“Closest yet.” Cooper noted in encouragement. Harry put the Jack aside as his first sort-of successful guess.

Next one. He rubbed his chin, tried to grasp that elusive sensation of being on the right track. His gaze wandered up the wall to the ceiling. The Jack must’ve been a luckshot; after all, there was a one-in-four chance he’d at least get the suit right.

“Any particular trick to this?”

”Only to follow your inspiration.”

“Okay...”

_Concentrate._  He pinched his eyes shut. It felt like the whole deck riffled past behind his eyelids.

“Trouble?”

“All that pops into my head is ‘King of Spades’. Doesn’t seem like there’d be another royal so soon.”

“Who’s to say it’s not possible?” Cooper mused. “If a hunch lingers, I usually keep going until I find the card in question.”

“Right…” Harry began to draw cards from the deck and turn them over. Nine of Hearts. Five of DIamonds. Three of Spades. He was down to half the deck. Numbers and marks slid past his eyes as he browsed, one at a time. Even the Queen of Spades turned up, nestled between the Ace of Spades and the Five of Hearts. But no king in sight.

Two cards left; Harry flipped the top one.

“King of Spades.” He allowed a wry smile. At last.

Their elbows brushed as Cooper leaned closer to inspect, so close that his breath tingled against Harry’s fingertips.

“I think you picked up two by mistake,” he noted, sounding almost apologetic.

“Huh?” Harry flexed the card at the edges.Sure enough, it slipped between his fingers to reveal the second Joker underneath. Rats.

He looked to Coop for guidance. “Now what?”

“Well,” Dale began and straightened in his seat. “Since it’s the King you were looking for, to consider him anything but correct would be counterproductive.”

“Yeah, of course.“ Harry slipped the cards into their respective heaps. One more to go.

He turned the last card; Six of Hearts. Well, his brief and blurry glimpse of intuition had passed for certain. He rounded up the deck and handed it back. There was more than a little distance to go before he could pin down nine of ten like Coop.

“Thanks for the loan. Think I’ll leave the hunches to you, though.”

“Never mind.” Cooper smiled, a good-natured twinkle in his eyes. “I’m glad you took an interest in it. Not every officer has shown this much goodwill towards my methods.”

“Their loss,” Harry decided. He might’ve known Cooper for just two weeks, but he knew for sure anyone who despised the man on personal merits alone wasn’t worth the time of day.

Cooper smiled, a smaller, softer smile that touched the corners of his lips and eyes. Harry suddenly realized his own feet were bracing against the floor, as if against the pull of a stream that would make him sway forward, tumble head over heels, if he didn’t look out.

The timer beeped. If there was a stumped look in Cooper’s eyes, Harry missed it when the man turned to press the off-button. “Six fifty-seven PM.”

“Okay.” Harry picked at the brim of his hat before he pushed it down over his ears, “Let’s lock up and leave.”

He followed Cooper out of the station, the night-air bringing the task at hand into focus. But he shed one last thought of the comfortable warmth left inside.

What if they'd had one more minute, if he'd let that impulse lead him?

Because something had passed between them. He just needed to get a closer look at it.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic has been an on-and-off project since...heh, maybe 2014. It started out as a side scene in another fic, then branched out as I got interested first in divination with traditional playing cards and then their connection/correspondence to Tarot cards. The result is some kind of amalgae of card symbolism in this fic. 
> 
> For your viewing pleasure, a brief (?) explanation of my reasoning behind the cards that come up:
> 
> King of Diamonds – can indicate a fair-haired or graying man of authority or influence, who may have a vengeful and dangerous streak. Moreover, Windom Earle is described as having a mind like a diamond.
> 
> Ten of Spades - generally considered an unlucky card in divination.
> 
> [Seven of Spades](https://www.biddytarot.com/tarot-card-meanings/minor-arcana/suit-of-swords/seven-of-swords/)
> 
> The Joker - In this fic I let him represent BOB.
> 
> King of Clubs - can indicate a darkhaired, kind-hearted man with predominantly fire in his chart.
> 
> Jack of Clubs - can mean a darkhaired younger friend or admirer.
> 
> Nine of Hearts – also called the “Wish Card”; the card just preceeding this one indicates what the querent desires.
> 
> [Three of Spades](https://www.biddytarot.com/tarot-card-meanings/minor-arcana/suit-of-swords/three-of-swords/)
> 
> Ace of Spades – often associated with death, a difficult ending or misfortune.
> 
> [Five of Hearts](https://www.biddytarot.com/tarot-card-meanings/minor-arcana/suit-of-cups/five-of-cups/)
> 
> King of Spades – as in the show, so above: Dale.
> 
> Queen of Spades – Josie, who parallels Dale in many ways.
> 
> Six of Hearts – ["Grace's Card" or “Loyalty at the Risk of Death”](https://books.google.fi/books?id=FDH1huAGSTkC&lpg=PA3&ots=YsybRaWO_R&dq=%22loyalty%20at%20the%20risk%20of%20death%22&hl=fi&pg=PA3#v=onepage&q&f=true)


End file.
